Firesight
by Teleryn
Summary: Sequel to 'Starsight'. Everything that could have gone wrong for Thorin has: Smaug is awake, half of Erebor is destroyed, war is looming, alliances are ruined, and an innocent witch has been sacrificed for an evil one. So much more than honour and riches are at stake. Now, a question mark is on everyone's lives. Rated T for violence and some sexual themes.
1. The Return

**_Firesight_**

**Disclaimer: ** I own neither Tolkein's nor Jackson's original creative material, on page or screen. My OCs might get a bit mischievous and break the universe, but that's their business.

**Author's****Note: **Yes, I have risen from the dead! For new readers, this is a sequel to _Starsight_, which covers the events of DoS. I strongly recommend you read that first, otherwise you won't have the foggiest idea what's going on here. But for those of you who have stayed wonderfully patient between _Starsight _and _Firesight, _I can only hope you'll find this first chapter a suitable reward. Can't promise that this story will be finished anytime soon, but as always, I do promise my best efforts. Happy reading!

**Chapter One**

**The Return**

Cauna steered herself against the night wind, fully inhabiting the body Ember used to own. Each cold breath was a dose of ecstasy, a reminder that after years of sub-existence, she was once again _alive_.

The witch cast wary glances up at Smaug as she gained on him. In no time at all there would be chaos and fire, tragedy and destruction. She needed to get the sister safely away before any of that happened.

'Slow your path, fire-drake,' she murmured, extending the fingers of one young hand up underneath the dragon's form. With moderate concentration she wound down the forces that swept his wings through the air. Now he moved forward still, but like an arrow through tar - and he would barely notice.

Having one less thing to concern herself with, Cauna tipped forward on Thorin Oakenshield's sword, steadily descending to water, black as the sky that had yet to dawn. The sword skimmed the water; Cauna remained upright, supported by her own magic, dark eyes fixed upon her intended docking point.

'Ember?' repeated Fili, holding Astra close while her legs were still unsteady. 'What do you mean? Did you feel something?'

Astra stayed silent, as though straining to hear a distant voice.

'I can't feel anything,' she said with shallow breath. 'I can't - her - she's not there, Fili she's not _there_, it's like she's -'

'_Quildë_, Astra,' said Tauriel, who laid a hand on the young woman's shoulder. 'If your head is not clear your heart will not know what to feel properly.'

She firmly tipped Astra's face to meet her own. 'Your sister, do you sense her?'

Astra opened her mouth, but no sound came out, because another came from the docks just outside.

'Astra?' The stairs to Bard's house creaked violently as the voice grew louder. '_Astra_!'

Dwarves, Elves and children alike all stared at the door when Ember appeared there, out of breath, singed, and generally wrecked. Kili stirred, forcing himself awake to prove this was not a dream.

'Ember?' he mumbled. Astra found her strength, and used it all to crash into her twin, heaving dry sobs.

'Em! Oh you're alive, you're here, oh I am never getting bloody separated from you again…'

The sisters embraced tightly. Ember closed her eyes and ran a hand up and down Astra's back.

'It feels like an age,' she said. 'But I am here now.'

'What in the world's happened to you?' exclaimed Bofur. Astra stepped back and stared at her twin's burn marks. Ember gravely addressed the room:

'I am afraid the worst has happened. Smaug has been woken, and he is making for Lake-town as we speak. Astra, we need to -'

'WHAT?!' the room collectively gasped. Kili pushed himself off the table with a newfound energy.

'How did this happen? What about Thorin? Is anyone hurt?'

He stood before Ember, terrified, but secretly thrilled to have her back and alive. She blinked at him.

'No, no one's hurt. Everything just went wrong, and quickly. There's no time to explain, _we_ _must get out of here_.'

'Where are we supposed to go?' said Astra.

'What about our da?' said Bain. 'Did you see him on your way here?'

'I - no,' said Ember, irritated by the question. 'Astra, this dragon is unstoppable, even with our powers combined.'

'Skies above, but we can't just leave! What about the Dwarves? What about everyone in this town?'

'Is there time enough to get everyone out?' said Sigrid, tearing Tilda away from the hole where the windows used to be.

'No,' said Ember. 'We waste precious seconds just by standing here discussing the matter! Astra, you and I…if this is not a sign to flee back home where we will be safe, what is?'

Astra held onto her sister's wrists. Both their pulses were rapid with fear.

'Where is the rest of your company now?' asked Legolas.

'Still in the mountain. At least there they'll be safe awhile, _unlike us_.'

'How is it that you came here so quickly?' said Tauriel, frowning. Ember looked momentarily thrown, and did not answer right away.

'I am lucky to have made it here with my bones still intact,' she replied. 'Smaug swept me up in his claws before bursting forth from the mountain, and dropped me in the lake. Now _for the love of Eru_, we need to run before we're burnt to ashes!'

'But -!' Kili and Fili protested, before being interrupted.

'You're right. Let's get out of here as fast as we can.'

Astra nodded quickly before turning to face the Dwarves (specifically, the blond prince). He looked truly pained when she shook her head and muttered, 'I'm sorry.'

Ember's smile was partly sad, but mostly relieved. She took up her sister's hand, nodded a general goodbye to the room, and crossed to the battered door.

Astra's face was calm as she let herself to be led along, and stayed calm when she took up a chipped beer glass and shattered it against Ember's head.

Silence fell with her body on the wooden boards - she lay with her hair over her face, perfectly still. Bard's children stared in horror and awe at the woman who took deep breaths to steady herself, shaking glass fragments from her palm. Tauriel's hands were over her mouth, Legolas, Oin, Fili and Kili were aghast, and Bofur was plainly bewildered.

'…What did you do that for?'

'Have you lost your mind?!' Kili all but screeched.

'I'm not the one you should be asking,' Astra replied grimly. 'Whoever this is, it's not Ember. Not the one I share blood with.'

'What are you saying?' asked Bain, taking a hesitant step closer. 'That she's possessed or something?'

'I don't know, I don't want to believe it.'

'She was acting very strangely,' Oin conceded.

'Exactly - if what she said is true, if Smaug really is about to descend on Lake-town, Ember would care more. She would _care _that hundreds of innocent townspeople might die today.'

At these words, Sigrid crouched to enfold a horrorstruck Tilda in her arms. Astra turned her attention to Kili.

'Not to mention she barely acknowledged your presence, let alone your full recovery!'

The Dwarf could only flush red.

'No,' Astra continued. 'I knew something terrible had happened - this is it. I don't trust this person at all, and neither should anyone else…_Also_, might I add, how could she have been dropped from Smaug's grip into the lake, only to turn up here dry and burnt?'

The floorboards creaked. Astra slowly looked over her shoulder.

Only Legolas dared to move, notching an arrow as an immediate defense against Ember, who stood from the floor and brushed bits of glass off her clothing with relative nonchalance. Her neutral brown eyes blinked before she reached up a hand to the back of her head. Astra's jaw dropped open further and further as she watched her sister find the tip of the largest glass shard and tug it from the back of her skull. She examined the fragment, half coated in sticky blood, with an absent-minded interest, before letting it clatter to the floor.

'And I thought_ I _was supposed to be the clever twin.'

Cauna dropped the curtain of false appearance: it was less exhausting to revert back to her dark eyes and hair anyway. Astra backed into the wall.

'Where's my sister? What are you?'

'Oh ho ho, not quick enough, Elf,' snickered Cauna, as she halted Legolas's arrow mid-flight and reversed its direction. It neatly pinned his hand to a broken ceiling beam. He cried out, unused to suffering such a swift and violent injury. Bain, Sigrid and Tilda squeaked with fright.

'Astra, dear child,' she continued, 'you know me. I have always been here. I am your twin, and the darkness of your memory, the stardust in your scar.'

Astra would have screamed as she did the night her father was killed, had Cauna not made her vocal cords seize up with her limbs into stillness. Before anyone could react quickly enough, she pulled Astra into a tight grip with a single gesture.

'Unhand her, you demon witch!' growled Fili. He lunged forward with a sword, but wavered when Cauna pointed a threatening finger at Astra's neck.

'Hastiness will only end badly, Dwarf prince,' she said, 'for you and for her alike. I have no need of blades to open and close a person's skin.'

Fili growled as he re-sheathed his sword. Astra pushed hard on Cauna's arm but only managed to buy herself a little more air rather than freedom from her grip. Tauriel and Legolas fought to pull the arrow from his palm.

'You…you're the witch?' said Kili, stupefied.

'Yes. _The _witch, I rather like that,' said Cauna. She enjoyed his discomfort from her glare. This Dwarf prince, no more than a boy, was so torn between what he saw and what he heard.

'Now,' she said, measured but lethal, 'I have more pressing matters to attend to, so I will spare you all the tedium of torture, hexes, death, what have you. Provided that you do not follow us. Break this instruction and you _will _suffer. As will she. Tenfold.'

Nodding at the immobilized Astra was enough to dissuade Fili from lashing out. Sensing his younger brother's growing ferocity, he gripped Kili's arm for good measure.

'What have you done with her?' Kili snarled. 'Where is the Ember we know?'

'Dead, silly prince,' Cauna responded flatly. 'Dead and gone. I was always in her, beneath the surface. But thanks to this failed quest of yours, I have broken through. It wore her down, made her volatile. Made her _weak_.'

The witch took out Thorin's sword with her free hand, tipped it to the floor, and stepped onto it, still holding Astra.

'Not in the least,' she added, glancing at Kili, 'because of her frankly sickening infatuation with you.'

Tauriel went as pale as Legolas.

'Yes, Kili, nephew of Thorin. She loved you dearly - her first, and her last.'

Cauna fused the sword with her magic, focused on the wrecked windows before her, and took off with Astra into the dawn.

The silence left in their wake was brief: Legolas winced as he and Tauriel gave the arrow a final hard tug to get it out of his hand, which he clutched and wrapped under his sleeve to soak up the blood. Tilda quietly sobbed in Sigrid's arms.

'…What just happened,' said Bofur.

'We have to get her back!' said Fili.

'What about the dragon?' said Bain.

'What do we do?' said Kili, having been thrown to one side of the universe and back.

In the corner, after muttering some quick words of healing to stem Legolas's blood flow, Tauriel took it upon herself to control the situation and delegate:

'We do whatever we can, as best we can. I know not how much time we have before the dragon lays waste to this town, but in any case you will need more help than is available here. Legolas and I can return to Mirkwood and bring in reinforcements.'

'From _those_ Elves?' muttered Oin.

'This is not the time!' cried Bofur. 'What about us, what can we do?'

'Head for the Lonely Mountain,' said Fili. 'Find Thorin and the others, tell him what's going on, and that we will meet them there as soon as we can.'

'Right. Wait, where are you going then?'

'To save Astra from Ember.'

'And Ember from Cauna,' said Kili. Tauriel stopped halfway out the door with a pitying look on her face.

'Kili, now is the time when honesty is vital. Do you think that there is any of Ember left to save?'

All eyes lay on the Dwarf prince. He fought a knot in his throat.

'In my honesty,' he said, 'I love her. It's all I need to begin with.'

Tauriel bit her lip and nodded.

'We will see you again with reinforcements. Come, Legolas.'

They started quickly down the stairs. Fili gave Kili's shoulder a solid pat.

'Where would they go?'

'It depends what Cauna means to do with Astra,' said Kili.

'If Cauna's taken control of Ember -'

'- then she has control of Ember's powers -'

'- and will want Astra's too -'

'- so she wants to steal back her powers -'

'- somewhere private but nearby…'

'The forest!' Sigrid piped up. 'That's the direction they're flying in.'

'Then we'll make for there,' said Fili.

'Will you be alright?' Bofur asked of Bard's children. 'Where will you go that's safe?'

'We can come with you to the forest,' said Bain. 'We'll show you the way, if we run fast enough we can reach them before the witch does anything else bad.'

'Good man, good plan,' said Fili. 'Let's away.'

'Meet you at the mountain,' said Bofur.

In under a minute, Bard's damaged lake house was deserted. Sigrid's intuitions were correct - Cauna was flying Astra out to the forest over the lake.

None of them knew she had a final errand to run beforehand.


	2. The Edge of Life and Death

**Chapter Two **

**The Edge of Life and Death**

**A/N: **Well hello there. Very encouraging to see lots of views so soon after the first chapter went up! The story is all planned out, but nothing is set in stone…yet. Leave a review, tell me where you want the story to go, what you'd like to see more of, less of, etc. Let's be reader-writer partners in crime! Otherwise, happy reading!

Were there space enough to do it, Bard would pace around his cell with furious anxiety. The harder he slammed on the bars, imploring the goal guards to listen, the louder they mocked him. At one point, he was lucky to dodge a flying glass.

It was between night and dawn, the dragon was coming to destroy every man, woman and child in this town as prophesied, and here he was, one widower with a splitting headache, powerless to do anything. He rocked back and forth, worrying over his children. Sigrid was smart and responsible, and Bain was courageous, but Tilda was small and fragile. Would all three of them have the nouse to escape in time, or were they sitting ducks?

A light clank between the bars on the upper window interrupted his trembling panic. Bard jerked his head up and fixed his gaze on a familiar face: the redheaded witch with soft, owlish eyes. She stared down through his window as he sprang up from his cramped bed.

'It's you!' he gasped.

'It certainly is,' she whispered. Blood spatters and black ash stained her white face. 'Listen -'

'The creature,' said Bard, 'it's heading for Lake-town, isn't it?'

'Yes, which is why we don't have much time. I am here to get you out.'

'Bless you, good lady, bless you!'

'Before I do, I have only this to say,' she checked behind her to make sure no one was around. 'The weak spot, beneath his wing. It exists.'

Bard steadied himself against the grotty wall.

'It exists? I knew it, I knew my ancestor's aim was true!'

'Hurry now,' said the witch, holding an arm through the bars. 'Defend your people.'

From her palm there shot a beam of orange light. She muttered some words Bard could not catch, and in the next moment, the lock on his cell door had fallen to the floor.

'I cannot thank you eno -' he started, but when Bard turned, she was already gone.

Below the gaol window, Cauna blinked back to her darker hair and eyes. She stepped onto Thorin's sword once more and secured Astra, who had been stuck, speechless and immobile out of sight, in her grip.

'You see him in the distance?' Cauna murmured, pointing at Smaug's form, still cutting through the air as slowly as a knife through hard butter. 'When we are away and safe, I think I will return him his speed, that he might unleash his claws and fiery breath into this miserable little dock town.

'Yes,' she said to herself, 'he shall have some play. But at the end of all things, I have little energy to compete with a fire-drake for power in this world. The Bowman will rise to the challenge of his bloodline. He will defeat the beast. After a little mayhem, naturally.

'Meanwhile,' she turned back to meet Astra's alarmed eyes, 'I need to take back what is rightfully mine.'

By the time the navy sky turned fully pale, Cauna had flown Astra out to the forest edge across from the enormous lake on which the town sat. She landed them further towards the centre to ensure they would be hard to reach.

With Astra still frozen in a standing position, arms stuck to her sides, Cauna had no problem whatsoever tying her to a sturdy tree with a coil of rope she had swiped from the gaol's dock.

Once she was bound, Cauna finally released Astra from the immobility spell. She slumped forward, spluttering and groaning as she tried to stay upright - her legs were like fallen stone pillars.

'Come, Astra, at least gather enough strength to look me in the eye.'

She gritted her teeth and did so, not out of obedience, but to face this nightmare that had come back and stolen her sister.

'Good, that's good.'

'Why…why are you doing this?' Astra rasped. '_How _are you doing this?'

'I was always going to do this,' said Cauna. She knelt down to Astra's level. A cold breeze ruffled the trees around them on the first morning of Winter. 'You remember less than your twin of that night, but I know you remember being hit.'

Astra shuddered, still trying to regain control of her body.

'Stoic sister, even you felt me simmering at the surface in moments of flared temper, moments at which you were most powerful. Part of me almost wishes that you had been dragged to the mountain in Ember's place. You could have been even more than you are with my magic. But no matter.'

The witch slowly clasped a hand over each of Astra's temples, with enough strength to keep from being shaken off.

'Finally, it is time to bring past and future into _my _present.'

Birds overhead were sent spiralling off course by a tremendous burst of green light. Lost somewhere in the ferocity of this display were Astra's screams.

Cauna herself hissed between clamped teeth, as her old power of pastsight painfully fused itself back with her blood. When the green light eventually flashed away and she felt it safe to do so, Cauna relinquished Astra, whose head fell limply back against the tree, eyes closed.

The witch staggered backwards, unable to see for visions, one after another, of past and future, of a hundred different things in such quick succession she had no idea what they were. Until they slowed, gradually, like a spinning wheel on dying momentum. Cauna knew not to fight the disorientation; she soaked up the pastsight like a sponge hurled into the sea, and suddenly there was clarity.

'The hobbit,' she muttered, blinking her eyes open. She saw Astra's memory of Bilbo Baggins before they set off into Mirkwood, and felt similarly drawn to the object concealed in his pocket. A ring…_the _ring.

Cauna raised herself to standing, steady enough on her feet to stare at the Lonely Mountain in the distance. It was as though she could see him now, cowering in the wake of Smaug, the One Ring of Power still sitting in his waistcoat like a harmless trinket. But he knew it was more than that. None of them had yet realised the sheer magnitude of the Ring's magic, none but Cauna, who felt the bittersweet darkness of what was to come in later decades.

The youngest Darell sister could wait. Reeling and restless from additional power, Cauna resolved to stop at nothing before closing her hands around the Ring, and the Arkenstone, both of which transfixed her in temptation.

Flying would be too conspicuous, and too quick - Cauna had enough energy to march to the mountain on foot. She left Astra tied to the tree, alone, to die at nature's hand.


	3. The Downfall of Smaug

**Chapter Three **

**The Downfall of Smaug **

**A/N:****So I saw BOFA on Thursday…Our poor, poor Dwarves. On the upside, the film has given me an excellent visual base to work off now. Doesn't mean the events will be the same though, oh no sir. Not by any means ****_*sinister author's laugh*_**

One of Cauna's few redeeming qualities was her patience. At least, patience during spectacles she took a strange sort of pleasure in watching anyway, such as Smaug finally laying siege to the ramshackle Lake-town.

She sat cross-legged on the opposite shore, tracing shapes in the coarse sand and following the dragon's flight path. Fleetingly, she wondered if Bard, along with most of the townspeople, had found his children and made them run as fast as they could. If not, they would most certainly die today. Sadness brushed her heart like a feather, and just as quickly fell away.

A collective scream rose from the town like a surging wave as Smaug came into view, even before he had opened his immense jaws to roar out fire.

Cauna watched, attentive and unsmiling, as the fire-drake started small, hitting one or two buildings at a time, as if practicing his aim after being out of touch with Middle Earth for so long. Some of the screams grew louder and shriller; some ceased altogether.

'Oh do come on and put up something resembling a fight,' she muttered, glancing down at the shapes she'd traced. They were all cuboids with lines pointing outwards: shining Arkenstones. Her subconscious was clearly favouring the gem over the Ring at this time.

As smoke turned the air above Lake-town to black curtains, Cauna at last saw a faint flurry of arrows spit up at the dragon. When they did not miss, they simply bounced off his burnished scales. Cauna shook her head and sighed, vaguely tempted to finish the beast off herself just to speed up the process.

'Ugh, but that is too much effort to ask of myself,' she sighed, jaw resting in her palm. 'After all I have been through, no. A good witch knows which battles are worth fighting.'

It seemed as though the sky had always been burnt orange. House after flimsy house fell like tissue too close to a candle. Any birdsong from the forest behind Cauna was overpowered by terrified cries.

She could make out dark specks on the smoky waterline - boats. Blackened little boats. Cauna could not yet make out anyone aboard, they were so far away. They could have been pulled by ghosts.

In the midst of these reflections, her attention was suddenly rerouted: Smaug had come, not to land as such, but to prowl, his marble eyes on something specific.

Cauna could not distinguish the guttural words that followed from his snout, but knowing the beast, he was baiting and boasting. She squinted - he was crawling towards a tower.

Out of nowhere, the dragon reeled, a strangled noise emanating from his scaly throat. It was only when the smoke clouds began to clear that she realised the bowman had actually done the job. The last black arrow had lodged itself firmly into Smaug's body, which toppled like fifty trees at once onto the remains of Lake-town.

'Well well, sir,' Cauna said aloud, an eyebrow raised, 'you have made good on your family's name.'

She moved to a standing position, dashes of pebble falling from Ember's singed clothing. She brushed her palms of shore dust, keeping her dark eyes fixed on the lake all the while.

'Savour the honour, bowman. Savour the glory while you can, for soon no one's name will be as great as mine.'

A disturbance of shingles caught her attention. One of the specks had made it all the way to the safety of shore, leagues ahead of the other boats. When Cauna saw who was on it, she could hardly be surprised.

'Oh, thank the Valar, most of the gold is still on board!' the Master wheezed, fussing over every coin that fell onto his boots as his pathetic servants hurried to moor the boat securely.

'Although goodness knows what we lost when those wretched Dwarves crashed into us - heathens! And Bard's brats…couldn't ask for a worse mix, I tell you. I hope they met their comeuppance -'

He lost the ability to continue with words when he happened to see Cauna standing mere feet from the side of the boat. His servants remained very still, none of them sure how the woman had got so close in the wink of an eye.

For a few seconds no one said anything or moved anywhere. Cauna simply took in the treasures spilling from the centre of the boat. It was a miracle it reached the shore without sinking.

'Gold is not where happiness is found.'

'I b-beg your pardon?' spluttered the Master. When Cauna returned his stare he wished he hadn't said a word.

'I take happiness from abstracts,' she said, as though this were a conversation about the weather. Smoke continued to blanket the sky. 'From moments of achievement. Success. Power. Surely you know all about that, you gouty sphere of fat and slime?'

The Master looked as though his world had been smashed with a hammer. His servants looked as though they'd been waiting for this moment all their lives.

'Behold,' said Cauna, dropping her voice, but remaining as eerily cheerful as ever, 'your loyal subjects near land.'

The Master jerked his sweaty head to see a fleet of boats clear the flaming debris of Lake-town, groans and sobs riding the ashen air.

'Well?' said Cauna, her voice practically a whisper. 'Where is your happiness now? Where is your power? They will have your head.'

The Master turned back and decided to expend all the fury building in his puffy cheeks on her.

'And what would a stupid escort like you know of power? I still have power - I am the Master of this town, whatever state it may be in! I have more power than you could dare to dr -'

Just as a soaked and choking Alfrid dragged himself ashore, having been unceremoniously shoved off the Master's barge, he froze at the sight of the Master, standing as if a hook was tugging at the back of his neck, clutching his throat as a line of red appeared messily across it. There were some seconds of gasping for air, and then there was only a tremendous clatter - the Master's massive body keeled over in the boat, causing a further avalanche of gold coins.

Without having to check he was there, Cauna glanced to her left at Alfrid, her expression indifferent as she rubbed her index finger and thumb together, as if having just singed her skin on a flame.

'That is what happens to those who bore me.'

The master-less servant took breaths as shallow as the waters through which he tried to scurry backwards. Cauna took a step forward, hand still raised.

'Are you a boring wretch, or are you a coward? Decide quickly and wisely.'

'Shore! Get to shore, make haste!'

Cauna stopped short of killing Alfrid, just to keep up her practice, as soon as she clocked just how close the survivors from Lake-town were getting. Particularly if the Dwarves and Elves were on one of these boats, she needed to clear the area immediately, lest they reappeared as a sizeable nuisance in her newly regained life.

A faint vision flickered over her eyes, barely there at all, but she saw the Dwarf princes clearly enough: the only thing greater than their anger was their determination, as they steered the boat carrying Bard's daughters.

Cauna left the shivering, dripping Alfrid and his fellow servants to make sense of their unfolding calamity, while she disappeared like a smoke trail into the trees. She would wait and watch, watch and follow, however long that would take, as long as it led her to the Arkenstone and the One Ring. Her patience was, after all, unparalleled. And it was not in these objects that she would find happiness, but in the terrible power they could afford her.

**A/N:** Hope you enjoyed! If you did, please review. If you didn't, please review anyway. Feedback is good.


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